Age and gender in UK film industry

Summary

As the House of Commons debates the Pensions Bill and looks at
the impact of the legislation within it to raise the pension age,
Sargent-Disc looks at trends within the UK film industry to see
whether it reflects an ageing workforce, particularly for women,
for whom the proposed changes will have a more noticeable
effect.

An ageing workforce?

Amidst the current discussion in the UK around pensions, our
ageing society, and the steep rise in retirement age for women,
Sargent-Disc has undertaken an analysis of age and gender in the
film industry. Looking at the whole UK film industry there has been
a noticeable shift towards an older workforce, for both men and
women. In particular:

Between 2009 and 2010 the proportion of the workforce in the
50-60 age group increased by 23%

The share of jobs going to the over 60s age group went up by
over 25% between 2009 and 2010

Men in the film industry

Focusing on men in the industry we see that, between 2009-10 and
2010-11:

The proportion of men aged 50 - 60 increased by 20%

The proportion of men aged 60 and over increased by 30%

Women in the film industry

Focusing on women in the industry we see that, between 2009 and
2010:

The proportion of women aged 40 - 50 increased by 20%

The proportion of women aged 50 - 60 increased by 42%

Age and gender

Despite seeing a shift towards an older workforce, the highest
proportion of jobs is still taken by the 30-40 age group. However,
analysing the data by gender shows that the highest number of women
in our sample is in the 20-30 age group, representing 39% of all
women sampled. These figures reflect recent Skillset findings on
the TV industry showing that the majority of women are 25 - 34, and
the majority of men are 35 - 49, whereas across other industries
the numbers of men and women of different ages are much more
closely matched.

Our findings suggest that experiences are different between women
and men, and that there is a difficulty in retaining a large number
of women beyond their 30s. The nature of freelance work can be
difficult for many people, particularly women and especially if
they chose to have families. Returning to freelance work can be
difficult post maternity leave, and this could be one of the
reasons that the largest group of women in our sample are aged
between 20 and 30.

Age and gender.... and pay

In our previous insight article "Age of Progression" we investigated the
relationship between age and pay by department and produced an interactive chart. The results show
that levels of pay across the industry are strongly correlated with
increasing age up to the 40-50 age group. After 50, average
salaries peak and for the over 60s they reduce slightly. This
reduction may be due, in part, to high earners retiring early.
However, it can also be explained by the large proportion of
construction jobs in the over 50s age group making up over 36% of
the total workforce as pay in the construction department peaks in
the 50-60 age group.

In "Is it a Man's
World?" we also found that women are under-represented in
construction. Despite an age-related increase in the number of
people working in the construction department, the number of women
in construction aged 40 years and above is less than 1%. To
visualise these results we produced an interactive chart showing average
median pay by gender for the UK film industry between 2008 and
2010.

Conclusion

Our analysis points towards an increasingly aging workforce and
suggests a strong positive correlation between age and pay for both
men and women up to the age of 60. Over the age of 60, the median
rate of pay for the industry is seen to reduce slightly. We have
found that the proportion of women across all age groups in the UK
film industry has increased between 2008 and 2011 with the largest
increase in the 40-50 age group.

Our findings suggest that there is some difficulty retaining large
numbers of women beyond their 30s, possibly as a result of leaving
work to start families or because of the uncertain nature of the
freelance world associated with the industry. The knock-on effect
of leaving employment is that women are often more reliant on the
state pensions they receive with a significant proportion, 40%, not
having a private pension to fall back on.

Many women will be affected by the proposed increases to the state
pension age and there is concern that, having planned for their
financial futures, some women may have to make up a significant
pension shortfall. As a result an older female workforce is
forecast, particularly if changes to the pension age come into
effect within the timescale proposed.

References

The Telegraph. (2011, June 20). How the state pension age is
changing. Retrieved from The Telegraph: www.telegraph.co.uk

Dr Laurence Sargent said:

11 October 2011

"I agree that statistics can be misleading and they are often used for a specific narrative, however, the 42% increase quoted is for women aged between 50-60. This age group made up almost 10% of the women in our sample in 2010-2011 and so should be statistically relevant across the industry. Our previous insight 'Is it a Man's World?' showed that women were under represented, making up only 32% of the industry as a whole in 2010. We did not look at the performing roles in isolation but it might be interesting to look at this in the future."

Pauline Moran Equity Councillor said:

11 October 2011

"How misleading the statistics are - a 42% increase in women over 60 employed in the industry between 2009-2010 is 42% increase of an almost invisible percentage - it is practically non-existent! Writers complain that they are asked to replace their older female characters with younger ones to the detriment of the storyline - this affects older female performers and further reduces an already skewed jobs market. Many characters are not gender specific but in most cases will be played by men e.g. lawyers doctors news sellers etc. Most roles played by older men could conceivably be played by older women and responsible commissioners and producers should ensure that some of them are. The Equality Act is specific - equal opportunities are a statutory requirement and this must also apply to the creative industries. Equity is campaigning on behalf of its female membership for an equal right to work - and this is most important where public subsidy is involved - more equitable choices can be made without damaging creative freedom."

Jean Rogers Equity Vice President said:

30 September 2011

"Sadly the decrease in women working in the film industry after 40 is also reflected on-screen too where female performers' careers peter out after 40 unlike their male counterparts. Since the arts should hold a mirror up to nature it is unacceptable that 52% of the population are not portrayed. Women's roles should be more than for decoration or cheaper labour. Also this hiding away of the older female image does not help the self esteem and confidence of a larger ageing female workforce."

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